Better Than That
by Moxie-Proxie
Summary: She wasn’t a child anymore, never truly had been. Seen and heard too many nightmares, faced too much evil to be anything less than the strong, beautiful woman that lay beside him. [AU] Mal & River


_Author's Note: Please note, for the sake of my own squick-factor, River is 25 in my mental canon._

* * *

He had her pinned to the door of her shuttle. One strong arm wrapped around her waist, the other at the nape of her neck beneath her heavy mane of black curls. His heart pounding against his ribs, slamming a rhythm against hers as they lingered together in a slow, warm kiss. Taking his time, like he so rarely did, to savor her. Explore. Feeling emotions he'd long held in, getting kicked up, stirred like dirt under a horse's hooves. But not the emotions he'd expected. Slowly, he pulled away, searching her face for some clue, anything at all on whether she felt the same. 

"So?" he waited for her appraisal.

"Well," she touched her mouth, tilting her head in thought, "it was warm and firm, not too wet and certainly not sloppy. You had good hand placement, I especially liked the hand in the small of my back. Excellent touch." She paused again, "Mal, you're a handsome man-"

"Obviously," he murmured. "No zip at all?"

"Not even a spark," she said.

Sighing and utterly confused, Mal moved to the stair landing on the upper deck and sat down. This was rightly confusing, yet again she had him twisted all about. Except this time in a whole new direction. Taking her cup of tea off the railing, she adjusted her long peach gown and sat next to him. For a while they sat in silence, Mal turning the kiss over and over in his mind, their bodies close, arms touching in a way that was more familial than anything else. He'd wanted this for months, years really - since she first glided onto his ship in that fetching green getup with the veil. As though that thin piece of fabric could protect them. From themselves, from each other.

Yet kissing her just now, after all that arguing and waiting...

"It's like kissing, Zo'," he said, not actually meaning to have spoken out loud.

"Well," she chuckled into her tea cup, "if she wasn't such a fine woman, I might have taken that as an insult."

"Inara, I didn't-"

"I know," she smiled, laying a gentle hand on his arm. "Are you disappointed?"

"More like gorram confused. Like River's riddles used to make me feel..."

She tries not to smile at the mention of their resident ballerina genius, but still a small one slips out. There's a subtext in her smile that Mal is not ready to interpret. "Would it hurt you, if I said I'm glad it turned out this way?"

His surprise - and his relief - read clearly in his lovely blue eyes. She's known for a while now, that their spark had faded away. They didn't know how to be near each other without biting and nagging, acting more like siblings than lovers. This was not the foundation of a life-long partnership, or even a decent short-term one. She'd just been waiting for everyone else to figure it out. Had been for over a year now. Ever since Jubal had violated their home, she'd known there was something lingering beneath the surface of his heart, that the good captain was not seeing.

"So what exactly does this mean, Nara?"

"It means," she smiled when he held her hand, "it means we're friends, and we like our relationship that way." They made a good team this way, anything else would probably tear them - and the ship - apart.

Mal pondered that thought as he laced and unlaced their fingers. Friends. Somehow that gave him more joy than the thought of constantly fighting with her. Over their jobs, over their unspoken words, over everything.

"Does this mean we're gonna fight less?" he asked.

"Absolutely not," she chuckled, leaning her head against his shoulder.

He just laughed, he was looking forward to it. She kept him on his toes, constantly made him think things through, and was a damn fine shot with shot with a crossbow. Gave him something no one else quite could. Friendship, with nothing else riding on it.

"So," she said after a moment of quiet, "have you ever kissed Zoë?"

"Hell no," she chuckled, "tried to once when I was fifteen. She decked me."

Inara's laughter bounced off the walls of Serenity's cargo bay. For a long time they simply sat on the stairs, Mal told the story while stealing sips of her tea. How he'd tried to kiss Zoë 'cause he was a guy, she was a girl and he figured that's just how things went. Zoë clearly begged to differ.

It was the most fun he'd had with her since drinking wine on the catwalk and watching over a herd of cattle. They made a good pair together. Zoë was a friend and he cherished her more than she probably knew. But with Inara it was different, he could let the Captain take a back-seat to the person. She didn't need him to be a leader or a captain, she could lead herself around just fine. But what she did need was a friend, someone she could let her hair down with. Where she could scrub off the mask, put the fancy clothes away and just be Inara. The women that lay beneath the image.

"We're outta tea," he peered into the cup an hour later.

"Because, you drank it all," she laughed.

He stuck his tongue out at her, "Did not."

"Did so, you _mischievous brat_," she teased in Chinese, nudging him in the ribs. "It means you have to go make more."

"Says who?"

"Me," she grinned. "I'll go pull out my secret stash of sweets."

"Breakin' out the good stuff," he chuckled as she sashayed to her shuttle.

---

The kitchen was quiet when he entered, flipping on a soft light to make tea by. Everyone was in bed for the night, Simon with Kaylee and Jayne with Vera. Zoë in one of Wash's ugly shirts, a hand laying protectively on her belly as she slept in her husband's old chair. River was probably reading on the couch outside the infirmary, as was her custom.

As he boiled water and measured the leaves for tea, he thought over how things had changed in the year since Miranda turned them inside out. Simon and Kaylee had finally admitted their not so well concealed feelings, and we were happily hunkering down in Kaylee's bunk most nights. Zoë was slowly making peace with her husband's loss; even as the discovery of her pregnancy had her in an emotional tailspin. _She'll make it through_, he thought to himself, _I'll make sure of it._ Jayne too, seemed to soften at the idea of a pregnant Zoë, and had become especially attentive to her in the past months. It still brought a smile to his face, the way the big bad mercenary was utterly in awe of the ultrasound photo Zoë had brought home. He clearly could not wait to be an uncle.

Inara seemed to be the one affected least by what had happened. But one look at her face when she wasn't playing the Companion, and he knew it wasn't quite true. Things with Jubal had shaken them; their home had been invaded, violated on a basic human level. Once again it proved that even in the black they could be found. It still gave him shivers, just thinking on it. He knew how much she considered Serenity a safe port in the storm that was her social circles. Then there was the bloody battle with the Operative and the origin of the Reavers, all at the hands of good intentions. Her faith in the righteousness of the Alliance had been ground to dust at the sight of what they had created. It was her _Serenity Valley_, he knew that as truth. She hadn't said anything yet, but he didn't expect she'd renew her companion license again. Only time would tell for certain.

Leaning against the wall, still waiting for the cantankerous stove to heat the water, he spotted a few books laying on the table. _River forgot to put away her books again_, he thought, gazing at the covers. Books on Firefly engine repair, evasive flying tactics, manuals that Wash had once used lovingly given to her by Zoë. With a smile, he plunked himself down in a chair, thumbing through one of the well-loved books. In the months since, the young girl had changed in many a way that even he found remarkable. While she was still working to understand her emotions - Simon said her amygdala had been striped, that she would be on medicine to manage it for the rest of her life - in every other way, revealing the secret of the Reavers had utterly transformed her. She'd taken to her job as pilot like a starving man onto a protein bar, and he'd found himself needed in the bridge less and less every trip into the black, a realization that both pleased him and saddened him in equal measure.

_Why does it make me ache that she don't need me? She's always been smarter than all us here combined. _Because he enjoyed being in the bridge with her, sharing cockpit consoles and watching her fly. Some nights spent talking over coffee, or simply gazing at the stars in silence. She'd transformed before them like that myth from Earth that was, the bird of fire that was reborn from her own ashes. Changing from a broken shell of humanity, into a brilliant, wildly creative woman that never ceased to brighten his day with her endless joy. She was nearly twenty-five now and fully capable of handling any unwelcome advances, but still the way Jayne had eyed her new curvaceous figure stirred him more than once to the brink of violence. A man shouldn't look at a woman with that much greed in his eyes... _you've looked at her the same way a time or two._

His consciousness sounded suspiciously like that of Shepherd Book. And now the gleam in Inara's eyes made far too much sense. She knew. The thing he'd been denying for months. The kiss with Inara held no spark-

"Because she ain't the one you're wanting to kiss..."

The reality of it slammed into him like the punch Simon had landed on him after the bank robbery at Lilac. He was attracted to River. Had growled at Jayne more than once out of something greater than familial affection, his silent warning had clearly said: _she's mine_. Even if he hadn't known it just then.

"Oh sweet mother of mercy..." he slumped back in the chair. Stunned by his own ability to conceal his true feelings. Even from himself.

The whistling kettle caused him to jump, scurrying out of the chair and nearly burning himself as he poured the water into the pot. Images slammed into him one by one. Rescuing her from Jubal Early. Why hadn't he let Simon go fetch her? _Well, there was that bullet hole, but still why had she wanted me?_ Carrying her out of the Maidenhead bar still boggled him. Simon could have easily done it, why had he brought her back at all? Why was it that whenever quiet descended in the bridge, he couldn't help looking at her? Holding her hand as they ran out the trading station, making sure she got back in the mule first. Why had he fought to keep her away from the Operative, risking himself and losing two dear friends in the process?

_Because you love her, you knob_, that was clearly Wash taking over the role as his concious.

"Mal, are you coming?" Inara appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.

Pushing the voices from beyond to the back of his mind, he let Inara carry the tray of tea out and followed her back onto the cargo bay bridge.

Later that night, as he climbed down into his habitually empty bunk, the signs of his perpetual loneliness seemed spread around him. A single bed, never warmed by another better looking form. The only woman to have graced his sheets being Saffron, and crazy liars didn't count. If a woman was going to share his space, he didn't want no silly head games bein' played. He always lost them anyway.

But River, ten years his junior... he could've nearly fathered her. How could he have any kinda thoughts for her that were anything more then paternal? He loved Kaylee to bits, would gleefully lay down his soul for his doe-eyed dumplin', but he most certainly wasn't in love with her. And she was older than River by a handful of years.

That got him thinkin' on Zoë and Wash, they always had been an odd pair, yet Wash had adored her with all his sock-puppet, sarcasm-loving soul. And she had loved him just as hard and fierce in return. He could see it in the way they'd held each other, the way she could let her guard down, and he could keep her anchored to things more pertinent than guns and the next job. They had complimented ones another in their oddness. And he'd never let her know, how the use of Wash in past-tense still stung more than a little. _You can't pick who you love, Mal_, she'd told him the night she'd said the furry-lipped pilot had proposed, _sometimes it just sneaks up on you, quiet-like. He's no solider like you or me, that's for damn sure; but he flies like a bird, and he's got a heart I could lose myself in. Everybody needs that in somebody..._

She'd been right then, still was. At the end of the day, everyone needed someone. Something churned within him, sleep now the last thing he wanted unless it was in the bridge where he could see the black. His bunk too confining and lonely now.

Quietly, he made his way up the the ladder again, surveying the hallway. Inara was off with a client for the evening, Kaylee and Simon were probably in her bunk or the lounge outside the old infirmary, and Jayne had said something about checking out the local color. Though Mal knew better, Jayne would have a few drinks at a local hole in the wall, turn down a few offers from the ladies and make his way back home, to sit on the bridge with Zoë while she read the newest book on babies she thought she needed. Jayne just liked to keep up appearances.

He checked out all her favorite spots; she wasn't in the bridge or the engine room, both lounge areas were vacant, it was about the time that he saw her room was also empty that the panic began to bleed in. Rushing into the cargo bay, he noticed one of the space suits was missing as well.

"All of heaven," he muttered in Chinese.

He knew how that she loved being out in space, last thing he needed on his heart was that wide-eyed girl floating out in the black, in that marshmallow getup for all eternity. Simon would find ways of tormenting him with a chopstick and a syringe, that Niska himself would cower in fear of.

"Malcolm," she giggled from somewhere on high.

Looking up, he could see her hanging above the landing of the cargo bay. A monkey in orange khakis an a dirty white tank-top. Happy as a girl could be that she'd nearly scared the breath out of her beloved Captain.

"You, young lady, are gonna be the death of me," he said, making his way up the stairs. "You get down before your brother spots you hangin' up there all monkey-like."

"Catch Mal."

Before he could holler at her to stop, she was dropping down from the ceiling, and he was all but leaping up the last few stairs to catch her. She landed on on all fours like a cat, standing and stretching, a perfectly pleased smile on her pretty face.

"Damnit River, you scared the breath of me," he said, in the harshest tone he could muster, his heart still firmly lodged in his throat.

"Let me put it back then, can't take something ain't mine."

She leaned forward, head tilted back, eyes closed. The picture of innocent desire with her lips slightly parted. He swallowed hard, his pounding heart trying to fight it out with his brain that was shouting about the special hell.

"River, I ain't the kind of man should be kissing a young lady like you."

"Can think of no one better," she opened her eyes, took his hand and placed it over her heart, "little body with an old soul. Like you, sad eyes with an old soul. Match like a pair of beat up boots."

He couldn't help but chuckle, "The more I'm around, the more you make sense."

"It doesn't scare you now," she leaned against him.

Her head against his shoulder, her arms around his waist. Slowly, he wrapped his around her. She fit like she'd always been there.

"River..." he paused, because there was no nice fluffy way of saying it, "I ain't you're daddy, you know?"

"Already have one father, don't need another."

"I know but-"

"You came for me," she looked up at him, "when they tried to take me away again, the Operative, Jubal Early; all of them who think their ways are so righteous... You came for me, my father never believed my words. I don't need another Gabriel. He is no angel."

"I ain't either," he whispered into her hair.

"No, but at least you're an honest devil," she smiled against his shoulder.

"Somehow I don't find that encouraging," he laughed.

She pulled away, her arms still wrapped around him, her head tilted up, looking at him and he knew that's where he should've left it. He should've kissed her on the forehead and sent her off to bed. It would've been the sensible thing to do, because even geniuses are impressionable, and this particular one was still on the mend from the events of the year before.

"River," he gently cupped her face, his thumb caressing her smooth cheek, "I'll be takin' no advantage of you. You go onto to bed now."

Her brow furrowed and her mouth set in an expression he could clearly see spoke of coming stubbornness, "You said you weren't my father."

"I'm not but-"

"Then stop acting like him. I can find my own way to sleep, don't need no crabby captain orderin' me to do so," she paused and he valiantly fought the smile that threatened to escape, she made stubborn looked damned cute, "I took something that wasn't mine, I want to give it back."

"River-"

She merely stood there, feet rooted to the grate, her head tilted back and eyes closed. Expectant, soft and beautiful with her hair falling out of her ponytail. Tenderly, he brushed his thumb over her full bottom lip, such pure innocence. _She's real beauty..._ Kaylee's words echoed through his mind. So easily spoiled by a man like him, used and manipulated like those at the Academy had done.

"Oh my albatross..." he whispered in Chinese, before scooping her light as a feather frame into his arms.

"Mal!" her dark eyes opened in wide surprise, her arms going around his neck and holding on. "What are you doing?"

"Taking you where you belong," he said.

Carrying her through the corridors of Serenity, she rested her head on his shoulder drawing in the scent of him. The pleasant earthiness to his rough cotton shirt, sweat from a hard day of moving cargo in and out of the ship, the scent of sunlight lingering in his tanned skin, a hint of what she thought might be after-shave. And beneath it all, that musky, alluring scent that spoke of male - _or Mal, as truth may have it_. She smiled into his neck at her own silly pun. A rare moment of contentment, as she watched the flutter of his pulse and counted beats against his skin. Barely there beneath flesh, and yet she saw it clearly. Strong and steady.

He knew he shouldn't have picked her up, it was too close, too much too fast for a man that ran from tenderness like it was some kind of disease. At least that's what he liked to tell himself at night. Or when she looked at him with that sweet sense of longing that pulled at his heart. He wished so much that it didn't, that he could look at her and not want to hold her. Not want to kiss her, but he did and once the feelings made themselves known, it was hard as hell to shove them back into the box he normally locked them in.

It hit him again, Zoë's words, _you can't pick who you love, Mal._ Her words may rightly be true, but still, he would hurt this beautiful woman in his arms. His record with women was an ugly affair. The only woman he'd been able to love was his momma, and he'd put her in the ground over a decade ago, couple years before he signed up for the war. And he hadn't been able to love a woman right since.

"Try try again..." she whispered into his neck, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

"You quoting phrases from Book's philosophy again?"

"Earth-that-Was. W.C. Fields."

"I ain't much good at optimism River," he said, walking past the infirmary.

"Try, try again. Then quit. No sense being a damn fool about it."

He laughed, and she could feel it shake through them both, "Now, that's my kinda quote."

She all but beamed, her head still resting on his shoulder. So proud she'd made him laugh, he did it so rarely and that made her sad. It was such a lovely sound. She wished she could hear it again, have it locked in her thoughts while she feel asleep, along with his smile.

Nudging the engine room door open, he gently lowered her into the hammock she so loved. River had claimed the colorful hammock as her own, where she could be surrounded by the sounds of Serenity's engine humming while she slept.

"Good night, Miss Tam," he whispered, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

"Try again, Mal," she whispered, tilted her head up. Refusing to give up.

With a sigh, he resigned himself to the knowledge that he wasn't getting out of this without kissing her, no matter how hard he tried. And believe you me, Mal Reynolds was _trying_ with everything he had. The fact that just carrying her to this room had set his heart to slamming against his ribs, felt like it was enough to damn him to the deepest circle of Hell.

"River," he smoothed down her hair, cupping her cheek, "I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

"Both darlin'."

"But I took your breath away," tears pooled in her eyes, "I need to give it back. Please, Simon said I shouldn't steal."

_You're taking my heart right now, honey_, he thought to himself. Surrendering and sinking down into the hammock, his eyes closing as she curled that delicate frame of hers against his side. Praying fervently that the ache running through his body would fade, because it all felt too good. And he knew it wasn't just that it'd been a long time since he'd had a woman by his side. If that were the case, then why didn't Inara send his heart tripping this way? Why weren't his hands hot when she'd held them, like they were now that he held one of River's against his chest?

"I shouldn't love you," his voice was rough and tight even to his own ears.

And she just laid there, watching him as they lay on their sides looking one another's eyes. He touched her cheek again, cupping her face, already knowing that his resolve was giving in. Because she wasn't a child anymore, never truly had been. Seen and heard too many nightmares, faced too much evil to be anything less than the strong, beautiful woman that lay beside him now. It had only been his own fear and stubbornness, that had stopped him from seeing who she truly was, and not just what he thought she should be.

"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence," she said.

"Fields again?" he leaned closer, looking into her soft brown eyes.

"Henry Louis Meckhen."

"Smart man," he whispered, before closing the space between his mouth and hers.

It was simple kiss, chaste by any other man's standards. Of course, was never much for following rules set by others, and by his standards it was just what it needed to be. Tender and sweet, her lips crashing into his over and over. Soft and exploratory, as he cupped her face, stroking the rough pads of his thumbs against her cheekbones, feeling her hands slid over his chest. Innocent and curious.

"_Sweetheart_," he whispered the phrase, cupping her hands, "ain't our time yet."

His voice was gentle, his eyes dark with fear and the love that he still had trouble wrapping his mind around. He knew with time it would make sense, he only hoped he wouldn't hurt her in the end. She'd already been broken by so many other men.

"Lesser men," she whispered, snuggling down beside him, "you're better than that."

Reaching back to flip off the light, he then wrapped his arms around her. Staring into the darkness, hee prayed for the first time since they'd said goodbye to Book and Wash. He prayed she was right.

---

That was how Kaylee found them the next morning, shuffling quietly into the engine room after slipping out of Simon's arms, to check on how her girl was doing under River's care. As she'd expected, Serenity was running as sweet and smooth as she ever had. But when she spotted the captain and River sleeping in her old hammock, a smile bloomed over her face, lighting up her lovely brown eyes. Mal lay with River curled up against his side like a kitten, his arms wrapped protectively around her. She'd never seen the captain so content.

And that was how she left them, quietly shutting the door behind her, after draping blankets over them both. She would talk to Simon when he woke, make him see the sense in all of it. Not just let him go off all his hinges 'bout his baby sister being corrupted by the less than pure Malcolm Reynolds. It wasn't like that, and Simon would realize that that in time. She was his albatross and he was her Captain, the living weapon and her guardian of serenity.


End file.
